The Butterfly and the Fairy
by The Mad Empty Shell
Summary: The secrets to your existence may be locked within the True. You hold one of the keys to disclose them… AkuRoku
1. 0 Broken Wings

**TMES: **And I edited. Happy now?

* * *

**The Butterfly and the Fairy**

**-0. Broken Wings-**

_My sweaty hands feverishly clasp yours_

_They would never let go_

_Something_

_So beautiful,_

_So gorgeous,_

_So lovely,_

_So exquisite,_

_So divine._

_But yet, so broken._

_Broken like the ethereal wings you once wore on your back_

_For they are now wrenched, torn, eradicated_

_Like mine._

_We abide to the same pain._

_Yet, am I selfish to think that I am in more pain than you?_

_Because it is not the material that throbs_

_And for you the material has perished._

_It is the core, the unambiguous heart _I_ still possess._

_The agony is spreading, the emotions fighting against their boundaries_

_Until they burst._

_And then, there is nothing left_

_But a fool who loves_

_His dead angel._

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: **Once suffices for the whole project – I don't own Kingdom Hearts and its contents. Square Enix and Disney do.


	2. 1 Fairytale

**Jack: **Bla bla bla. On with the story.

* * *

**The Butterfly and the Fairy**

**-1. Fairytale-**

'_Once upon a time, there was a beautiful fairy. She was so beautiful that all the other fairies would love her dearly, envy her for her unending range of splendor, and even fall for her. Everyday she would wake up to the affectionate calls of her brothers and sisters, who would be ready to escort her to the gardens of Old Marchen. Every path she treaded would be filled with sparkling pixie enthusiasts following her to the upcoming adventures of the day. Every time she sang, nymphs would gather around her in their dreamy states, so touched by her melodious voice that they would beg her to sing for them for countless hours. She would be surrounded by sprite admirers confessing their endless love to her, pleading her to return their affections, ready to give her everything that this world could supply to please her, promising her the impossible, devoting themselves to her until their decay, loving her._

'_But everyday, she would just smile sweetly, shake her head with refusal, and disappear into the yonder Sylphic Woods._

"_She allowed nobody to follow her there. Not that it was a daunting forest or anything. Oh, not at all – it was the most beautiful place in the world. It was filled with colors, lustrous with every droplet of water that cascaded from its leaves early in the mornings. Each flower smelled of different pleasant aromas that heartened bliss and peace, and the sounds of the woods' songs would fill one's heart with thrill. It was bursting with the liveliness of the animal and magical population inhabiting it: pixies, sylphs, undines, nymphs, brownies, horae, leshii, fauns, gnomes, elves, dwarfs, tomte, oberons, unicorns, caladriuses, centaurs, sprites, melusines, nixies, and the holy spirits of nature…_

'_But little did everyone know about why the beautiful fairy did not permit anyone to accompany her amidst the vivacity of all these colors, smells, and creatures. They did not know that it was the fairy's favorite creature among all these, a creature whose beauty was simple compared to the ones of the exotic occupants of the forest but gorgeous and alluring nonetheless, that was the very reason for which she visited the deep meanders of the Woods with an expectant heart beating with indescribable emotions._

'_This was the very creature who, unknown to every jealous soul, had stolen the fairy's heart…_

'_This very creature, anonymously illicit to all Marchen, was a butterfly.'_

…

… A tired sigh escaped through the stillness of the small, dark bedroom. The lips that had been undone were now being licked hesitantly by a tongue, an action that served not only to moisten the dry flesh, but also to symbolize a feeling of satisfaction the owner of this body felt for a short moment.

Roxas was only slightly satisfied indeed. When he glanced at the lower left corner of the computer screen, he realized that an hour had passed already since he had typed the initial words: '_once upon a time'_. That was quite a record, considering the fact that Roxas was a complete failure when it came to writing descriptive pieces. His vocabulary, grammar, spelling, sentence structure and writing style were moderately good and all, but when it came to describing, he would just gape at his teacher and try to persuade her (with his puppy blue eyes) to cancel the assignment or change the learning objective of the work.

Of course, he was incompetent at that as well.

He clicked on the red X button of the window hastily, putting in more strength than needed and thus threatening the life of his laptop's touchpad. Not only was he angry at himself for failing to fulfill his teacher's expectations (yes, he was man enough to admit the grand fiasco), but also at the stupid assignment itself. He hated fairytales. They were just a bunch of… unrealistic junk. Why did people invent fairytales anyway? What benefits did they get from making their children believe in the unreal? All the little shrimps would do would be to squeal with delight at the realization that their life wasn't really as boring and plain as they had initially imagined. But this state of mind would last for only a few years, after which true realization will kick in their good-gone-bad minds and the world would seem boring and plain all over again.

No adolescent or adult remembered that part of their life anymore, but Roxas did, crystal-clear, as if it happened only yesterday.

Nine years ago, a little blond boy had been tapping his fingertips excitedly on his lap as he impatiently waited for Miss Ross to finish the story. When she had done so, he had let out an amazed squeal and had run up to her, pleading her to read another of those books she used to keep in the high shelves. His schoolteacher, who also tutored him privately in the 1st grade classroom after school, had smiled unenthusiastically and had told him that she will read another story in the next lesson. Roxas had pouted and his big ceruleans had gained salty water in them.

"_But… but Miss! I wanna know more about the fairies and the dwarves and the unicorns and the fauns!"_

Miss Ross had stared at him with exasperation written all over her face.

"_I know they are fun, Roxas, but you have to understand that you can't spend the whole day hearing about them."_

"_But…"_

Miss Ross had sighed.

"_What about you learn to read, hmm? Then you'll be able to read as many storybooks as you like. Yourself."_

The small, innocent child had flinched with surprise. He had never seen Miss Ross act so mean before… _Why was her voice so bitter?_ Before he knew it, he had begun to cry. The older woman, having nothing better to do, had reluctantly pulled him into a cold embrace. For a few moments, the blond had to bear all those forced words of comfort that weren't supposed to hold any meaning as according to his teacher's annoyed tone. Then he had slowly looked up to the lady's face and had whispered in-between his sobs.

"_Why… why are you so angry, Miss Ross…? I-I just…"_

"_I'm not angry, Roxas," _the teacher clearly lied.

"_Yes you… a-are… I just wanted to know m-more about those strange animals with wings a-and those that know how to make your wishes come true… a-and those that know how to do m-magic and stuff…_" If his voice hadn't been desperate enough before, now it was. _"I just want to g-get to know a-about them so that when I meet them one d-day, I… I…"_

Miss Ross had sighed again.

For the last time.

As a last warning.

If Roxas pulled her skirt like that again, she'd have to break his little heart.

"_Roxas, please stop pulling. If you don't…"_

But Roxas hadn't let her finish. He had whimpered another impudent exclamation, and before the woman could stop him, he had passed the red line already.

… After that, all Roxas remembered was experiencing how the teacher had really been feeling about him all this time, what really had been bothering her during all those classes she had had with him, what exactly she had been trying to _hide_ from the little six years old, naïve little boy…

"_They don't exist, Roxas._"

The same now-teenage boy traced his sweaty palms from his forehead down to his chin.

"_They're fake."_

Roxas gingerly turned the computer off without any further hesitation.

"_They're not real."_

After the monitor went pitch black, Roxas fell onto his queen-sized bed and crawled to the farthest end of it, grabbing a pillow as he made his way through the dark. Weak rays of yellow light from the streetlights outside coursed to his deadbeat figure, but the blond was too worn out to close the blinds. Too drained, drowsy, and fatigued, both in mind and in body.

_They're not real._

Tossing and turning didn't assist to the resolve of his current mental wavering. It had been decided long ago that, yes, Roxas was a realistic person. He accepted in a sensible way only what is actually possible to do or achieve, he flourished in representing things as they are in real life. Real life… Real life was not a _fairytale._ Because fairytales are not real.

_They're not real._

With a last, memorable chanter to serve as the only remainder of his resolution, he closed his eyes and swept to the land of slumber.

Little did he know that it wasn't a dreamless sleep that had welcomed him into his, or rather, _her_ arms.

* * *

"Don't, Morpheus."

Phlegmatic eyes pierced into the darkness until they rested on the invisible but tangible figure of the speaker. The latter did not cringe at all when the excruciating tremor radiating their way out of those beryl eyes attacked him with haste intensity. He simply watched the owner of these hypnotic ponds take another silent step forward, the soles of her bare feet delving into the softness of the black velvet covering the undetectable pavement.

Her voice melodiously soared into the somber silence.

"We have taken an interest in them, Father," was what she said.

And still, the man in black did not bulge. Like an erudite phantom made of shadows, he waited patiently as the other figure maintained her effortless saunter into the nocturnal but not sinister abyss of the Black Chamber. When the faint emissions of pressure on the carpeted floor came to a halt, he spoke up once again.

"Do not force me to close my blind eyes."

Abruptly, a spiteful snigger played a sardonic tune above their ears. Neither the regal man nor Morpheus gazed up to meet the second callous intruder.

"Aw, man," the newcomer cooed with fake compassion at the statuesque phantom man. "Let us have some fun, Vexen. Suckers like him are hard to find nowanights, you know."

"And besides," yet a fourth voice frigidly entered the audible range, the only sense presented for use inside that cage of darkness, "Namine-" she halted before regaining her composure and correcting her silly mistake. "I mean, _Morpheus_…" she hissed this last words with arousing mockery. "She can and will break through your blind barriers easily."

"And we can and will tag along," added the third scornful male sneer that reverberated from the indistinguishable ceiling.

Before long, the Morpheus and the two other prowlers sensed the heavy weight of indecision being emitted from the tormenter of their plans, the very core of what would commence their next venture into the caverns of Hypno's most admirable creations: sleep.

Gradually, the atmosphere began to lose its palpable heaviness until the dark that once was became a frail candlelight polluting the Chamber that was Black no more. Taking this delightful occurrence as a symbol of consent, Morpheus and her two siblings faded, without any goodbye, into the land of dreams, as the Chamber returned Black once again.

_Dreams… Specks of brightness amidst the darkness of sleep…_

…Vexen had closed his eyes.

* * *

**TMES:** Last part was _supposed _to be confusing.


	3. 2 Dream

**TMES: **I invented the word _**MOOGLISH**_ – 'concerning moogles', duh!

* * *

**The Butterfly and the Fairy**

**-2. Dream-**

Axel had that bizarre dream again that night, for the second time. Just like last time, his invisible surroundings were pitch dark for a moment. The next thing he knew, it had begun to acquire brightness, gradually going from the most nocturnal of blacks to an inky violet… then to an indigo of the marine abysses… then to a cloudless sky blue… then to an aqua spread on the midday sea … then to a vibrant green very familiar to him for it was the dressing of his own eyes… then to a canary yellow resembling a child's burnt crayon… then to the acidic orange of a fresh orangeade sought after in a hot summer afternoon…

The developing colors of the rainbow progression stopped abruptly to morph. It did not proceed to progress further from the citrus orange to a crimson blood red to a mooglish pink and finally to an eye-blinding white.

As Axel had expected by considering the scurrying events illustrated in his previous dream, the sequence of the visible colors of the light spectrum stopped until it reached its orange segment.

Highlighted carroty lights now illumined the unidentifiable location. However, the rays did not seem to have any source and the outline of the environment seemed vague. To the dreaming mind of Axel, it abstractedly looked like he was trapped inside a cage – a circular structure, to be more precise – of which the opaque orange boundary oscillated as if it were a silky veil. Hesitantly, Axel's trembling yet curious fingertips reached out to the apricot walls. When they finally made contact with it, though, they hastily recoiled back to their dumbfounded owner, who hissed in utter disgust and hurriedly brushed his unclean fingers on his pants, furiously trying to get rid of the sticky and grimy substance he had just ingenuously touched.

As he moved his palms up and down against his sides, he caught the sound of a familiar girlish giggle resounding from behind him. When he turned around, his unsurprised verdant eyes met the ultramarine ones of a russet-haired girl only a meter behind him.

"If you only knew where you are!"

The teasing words of the female figure behind him clearly struck a nerve, as they did the night before when the boy had first met the girl. Well, to be honest, Axel was not even sure that this _thing _was a _girl_; at least not a _normal _one. Sticking to the latter choice, a _normal _girl would not go around with a pile of long, white, bandage-like strips of cloth messily tied to her neck. A _normal _girl would not usually wear a short cerise dress ravishingly torn at the edges and at its upper right so that her fair shoulder lay exposed. In addition to the very short, pink ragged dress, this _not normal_ girl was wearing what looked like a black leather stomacher cut at the breast and above. Loosely tied to her elbows were more pinkish strips, and on her forehead, semi-covered by mid-length, smooth, auburn hair, she bore an × shaped scar.

… Alright, fine, the just mentioned descriptions did not help much in pointing out why exactly this girl, or _thing_, was _not_ _normal_. What did, though, was the fact that she was literally _gliding_ on the air, not touching the floor at all, and that instead of a pair of fair and glossy feminine legs jutting out from her hips, she had a long, black, and scaly _snake's tail._

Figures.

"Maybe you could help me out a bit here," Axel sighed as his eyebrow twitched when the _thing _in front of him gave him a purely derisive grin, "Miss Little Mermaid."

The mermaid _thing _was not even the slightest taken aback or affronted by the childish mockery.

"I thought I already told you that my name. It's Phobetor."

"Bless you."

When the semi-serpent _thing _grinned more widely and lowered herself to the twilit and synthetic ground below her, Axel tentatively decided that maybe the pavement would not be as gross as the slimy oval walls he had previously touched. He positioned himself cross-legged on the floor; fortunately, it felt a bit like sitting on innocuous bubble rap instead of some sticky orange slime… Pheww.

The weirdly named _thing _tilted her head and rested it on her bare right shoulder, her entertained grin still not leaving her face.

"Well," she smirked, "Then call me by my other name, I told you that one as well yesternight. You know, Icelus."

The redhead waved his hands at the _thing _in a drained way.

"Naah, that's plainly dorky… and _queer_," he shrugged and refused. "I'll stick to calling you _Thing_."

Oops, he did not just say the last part out loud.

Alas, he did, since the _thing_, now officially goaded to the very end of her constraints, gaped in chaste annoyance.

"Okay, fine!" she exclaimed, dramatically throwing her hands up in reconciliation while Axel barely suppressed an amused laughter. "Call me by my other _other _name. The one my brother and sister call me by… Just don't use that name in front of my father or anything, he kinda gets angry when someone does that – you know, he's obsessed with family pride and all. Although I don't see what my two stupid and ridiculously old-fashioned nerdy names have _anything _to do with family pride… Oh yah, now I remember! All the other family members have dumb names like mine!"

Axel rolled his eyes.

"Just get to the point and tell me your other other name," he snorted teasingly, then added, "_Thing._"

For the first time ever, Axel saw the corners of the usually smirking lips of the _thing_ stirring upwards into a genuine smile.

"_Kairi_," she made it at last. "Call me Kairi, Axel."

Axel opened his mouth to reply astutely, but stopped when he grasped the last word uttered by the _thing _that was now labeled as Kairi.

"What a sec…" he started, his mind turning actually engrossed to the dream for the first time, "How do you–"

But before he could finish his sentence, the tangerine shell enclosing him and Kairi in that unknown place shook abruptly. Axel instinctively propped himself close to the ground, thus avoiding to fall over to his side and make contact with the edges of whatever he was in. Kairi, on the other hand, did not shift in position nor show a mere sign of noticing the sudden change in the situation. It was not anything like an earthquake though; it felt like the whole place had just decided to shift its position, just like a planet revolving around the sun.

"What the f–" Axel started off, but once again, he was interrupted curtly.

"Look." Kairi pointed behind him.

And when he looked, he froze.

Boorishly obstructed by those semitransparent acidic walls of the veil-like sphere was a sole face, about two times bigger than Axel's own body. A giant…? No… it could not be. Giants were supposed to be ugly. This… creature… looked more like… a boy. A _normal _boy, mind you, not Kairi all over again. But then again, why was his head disproportioned?

"He's bigger than that, you know," Kairi said tonelessly, making him even more bewildered than he already was.

The orange boundaries of the shell (he could not find a more appropriate name for this place) were opaque, so as to hinder the color of the light rays penetrating from outside, but they were also transparent enough for Axel to distinguish the shapes of the head of the boy. His profile looked fair and childishly rotund, without any sign of plumpness in it. His slightly dark hair tenderly stroked his face at curiously elegant angles: three long bangs gracefully falling in-between his eyes, some other shorter ones at each side of the longer fringes; then it curled up against his tender cheeks, and again some more longer strands caressed them and the neckline; most peculiarly, some spikes just above his hairline spiked towards the left and upwards and stood firm and frozen into place, as if a snapshot of them had been taken when a seaside breeze had just blown across them.

But, the most distinctive and impressive features of him were the eyes; overlapped by the darkest of eyelashes, they were very dimly shaded, seemingly indigo as they was overlaid by the orange stratum, and mystic as they intensely stared at him with unknown, deep emotions.

"Beautiful just like you remember him to be, ne?"

Axel shrieked and jumped in surprise; he had been too busy delineating the face of the boy outside the shell to remember that Kairi was still present behind his figure.

"Be… beautiful like I remember him to be?" Axel repeated her words, quaking, trying his best to look at Kairi but still keep the boy's head's shape in the corner of his eye. "What do you mean by that? I don't remember him! I mean, how can I _remember _him when I've never even _seen _him before?!"

As Kairi sighed in an annoyed manner, Axel quickly turned around, for he spotted a slight change in the background behind him. The unknown boy had just tilted his head to his side, and his shadowy eyes had narrowed, making Axel's heart recoil against his back like they were just pierced by cross and sharp needles. Axel's green frightened jade eyes were now locked with the frightening indigo ones of his, as if they were trying to convey some hidden mysterious message to him through their mystifying glaze.

Kairi's words echoed back to him.

_Beautiful just like you remember him to be, ne?_

The boy's gaze seemed to become impossibly more biting and heart piercing.

'_I am beautiful just like you remember me to be, am I not?'_

Axel shook his head to himself.

'_I don't _know_ you… How can I _remember_ you?'_

Again, those eyes glazed some more.

'_Of course you know me! You just can't remember me…'_

Axel felt like his breath had began to speed along with his throbbing heart.

_Remember… _Truly, he did not know this boy, no matter Kairi's and those eyes' protests. He could not remember simply because there wasn't _anything _to remember.

Then why was his heart beating so fast? If it was so simple, then why was his heart aching like it had been cut?

_Why did it feel like he actually _did_ know this boy?_

His vision started to fade. The acerbic brightness now turning back in time… from orange to yellow, from yellow to green, from green to aqua, from aqua to blue, from blue to indigo, from indigo to violet, from violet to black, and from black to…

_Black._

* * *

Axel woke up with a start, the vermilion ends of his long mane sticking brazenly to his skin.

He instantly brought his sweaty palm over his heart.

It was still hurting, just like in his dream.

* * *

**Jack:** There you go.


	4. 3 Nonsensical

**TMES:** I _had _to post this because… IT'S AXEL'S DAY! 08 AUGUST '08! And it's also 8 PM!

* * *

**The Butterfly and the Fairy**

**-3. Preposterous-**

If it were not just a ridiculous, petty dream, Roxas would have reached for the nearest Struggle bat resembling object and flung it straight onto that creepy black _thing_ jutting out of the tree bark to send him back to where it came from.

Unfortunately for him, it _was _a dream. Or fortunately, since he would have hated to see something so preposterous in real life. More unfortunately than fortunately, the beleaguered boy realized, since he simply _despised_ dreamland in the first place.

"Yah, I know," the black _thing _with round yellow eyes and an equally mocking platinum grin started out of the blue (or rather, the tree). "You hate dreaming and all that crap, but Namine wanted to play with you a _little_, so here I am!"

Was Roxas even the tiniest bit dumbfounded? No. He had had more outlandish dreams before. As a matter of fact, dreams were _meant _to be outlandish. They were nothing but a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep, the incessant chaos at the back of the hectic mind of a human being surfacing only at the state of semi/unconsciousness. And the only exceptional benefit craved out from it? An interesting definition of one's imagination and creativity.

But then again, Roxas has never been a virtuous fanatic of anything that concerned inventiveness. The black face of the _thing _protruding out of the bark of the tree in front of him was one of those things. Its creator (either God, its parents, or his own unwieldy mind) must have had an excess dosage of nonsensical inspiration, for the scene was simply that – nonsensical. As already mentioned (thrice), the black face of the _thing _was the out-popper of a tree trunk. Its grotesque yellow eyes were aberrant round specks dully coloring the inky surface they plainly rested onto. Because of its colorlessness, Roxas could not accurately define the profiles of its features, but from the mere outline of that shadow he straightforwardly assumed that the _thing _had a passionate liking for spiky hair.

_Very _spiky hair.

"You're not the first one to think it like that!"

Roxas guessed that he should get used to having his thoughts effortlessly observed like an open… movie. But then again, how can one _think _in a dream?

"Anyway," the black _thing _continued with its apparently purposeless banter, "You're really boring, you know that?"

Roxas's blank stare responded for him.

"Hmm, I thought so," the _thing_ mocked again.

Its Cheshire grin started to gradually shorten until it could abridge no more. It had disappeared into its botanical dwelling.

Roxas shrugged nonchalantly, a breath of hot air making its way up his throat and striking the internal walls of his neck with a raucous touch. Bringing his sleeved arms around his slender frozen body, he casually liberated a lone sigh. He brusquely slammed his upper back against the notorious tree which had once given host to the long departed _thing_. As his feeble knees renounced to the pulsating aching of his shins, he found his delicate stature steadily sinking down against the serrated trunk, the friction present regardless the shielding layers of clothing. When he could descend no more, he befell motionless.

Motionless, except for an itinerant palm crawling amidst the green surfaces of the nature around him, getting damp with dew at the process.

An icy breeze blew against his shattered silhouette, persuading his body to somewhat give in to the touch. It was almost as if cold feminine arms were embracing him welcomingly while he leaned into her seraphic touch.

… How bizarre.

He was actually feeling relaxed. Peculiarly secure in the middle of that fairyland forest cornered inside the irrational branch of the human mind. The hazy thought of the angelic feminine embrace surfaced on his mind again, and so did that previous assumption of the one and only advantage he ever succeeded to uncover about dreaming – imagination. Why was the typically heavy atmosphere of dreamland now so weightless? Was this… was this somehow a measure of his imagination? The ability to create pictures in one's mind… He knew he had never been good at developing that part of his mind that possessed this ability, but how could he be _this _lacking? This… quotient of his was almost shallow… very shallow.

'_They're not real.'_

Why couldn't he just let the whole thing burn in hell and throw Miss Ross into the flames as well?

"Emo thought, emo thoughts."

The _thing _haddecided to come back. Roxas's cloudy vision turned upwards, and he was almost happy to see that the somber face of the _thing _was now hanging like a newborn personified fruit out of a branch.

Wait… almost happy…? Why? Because… that seemingly trivial scene there just encouraged the supposition that no, maybe he still had some creativity somewhere in his mind. But why did he give a damn about creativity first of all? Well, because that would greatly help him with that banal Creative Writing project which had yet to be finished and for which he's recently been deficient of good ideas that could lull his teacher to save his report card.

"Or maybe…" the _thing _snorted, swiftly changing Roxas's former train of thoughts.

Or maybe…

'_They're not real.'_

Maybe his childhood was coming back to him or something. Oh, great, just great. Miss Ross all over again. Why couldn't she just _disappear_? She just so had to be friends with her mother and had to indirectly force him to see her sluttish face at least once a week. And with the blameworthy slut came all the blameless memories of fairyland…

"Memories?" the _thing _suddenly piped up, interrupting the blond's lengthy train of confusing thoughts. "You mean, you remember?"

Roxas attempted to reply, but his vocal chords gruffly denied their master's request, sending instead additional shivers up his throat.

'_Remember what?_' He wisely decided to resort to his mind's robust voice, knowing that, contrary to his throat, it would be immune to harm unless death was encountered.

As evidently expected, the _thing _had effortlessly read his mind again.

"Oh, you know, the whole fairyland thing."

'… _You mean my childhood obsession with fairytales?'_

The menacing yellow eyes of the _thing _bored through his own blues awkwardly, as if he had just grown two heads. How ironic, considering that a carbon copy of its own head was now balancing off from a second branch above the blond's head.

"Er, no," the _thing _blinked, and for the first time its round eyes abandoned their shade of taunt and acquired a deep mist of uncertainty. "I was actually talking about the 'butterfly'… _thing_."

Roxas snorted. Had the _thing _just learnt to pronounce its name right, perfectly centring its oh-so-important stressing sound?

"If you don't stop referring to me as _thing_, I'll grow another head."

'_Thing.'_

As promised, a third black spiky outline started to lavishly sprout out of yet another tree branch. By now, Roxas had three _thingy _heads drooping sluggishly above his own head.If he had had sufficient energy to reach out to these black fruits of his nightmare, he would have promptly eaten one to successfully demonstrate that he was courageous enough to devour the Forbidden Apple. Or maybe the _thing_ was just the reincarnation of Cerberus.

Either way, he was hungry.

The _thing _resumed its grin when the thought offhandedly crossed Roxas's mind.

"To be a cynical kid who hates fantasy world, you sure have a deep knowledge of mythology and whatnot."

'_Used to have, actually. When I was a kid. For now, I'm just remembering these _things_.'_

The _thing'_s golden eyes flicked momentarily, "Oh, right! The _thing _issue…" Itspout was now extremely palpable. "Stop calling me _thing…_ Call me Sora."

Deep silence followed this last uttered uncommon word. After a grave minute of contemplation, Roxas hesitatingly broke through the barriers of silence with his 'soundless' mind.

'_Isn't that a girl's name?'_

_Sora _released a large snort, "Sora, not Sarah."

'_Still. It's a girly name.'_

"That's just for you people who watch Digimon when they have nothing more boring to do."

'_That still doesn't change the fact that it sounds girly.'_

Sora did not need to use any verbal abilities to retort to the insult – he simply resorted to enlarging the size of his Cheshire grin. And consequently, empowered by Roxas's encouragingly twitching eyebrow, it grew wider.

"It's up to you, really, whether you want to call me Sora or _Thing_," Sora snickered maliciously as his two other heads woke up from their former state of idleness and began to snicker with him, "The latter will just make you sound dorky. And then there's my other name…" Sora clicked his tongue. "_Phantasus_."

'_Sounds dorkier.'_

And familiar…

"My point exactly," Sora snickered once more as his two other heads began to gradually 'ungrow' like two black balloons steadily losing helium.

As this process leisurely ensued, Sora's (original?) head began to sprout more revealingly as his black serpentine neck grew longer and longer until it reached double the size of its host tree. Roxas watched phlegmatically as the end of Sora's fluid neck squirted out of the branch with a liquid sound and planted it self firmly on the ground in front of him. Minuscule black roots started to blast out of the tail's extremity, and as they planted the body amidst the wet forest surface, Roxas noticed, Sora's dark spikes had started to elongate like sycophantic untamed hair-tentacles. Fortunately, Sora's glowing lantern eyes did not change in appearance at all; they remained taunting as ever, but as long as they did not morph into Medusa's lethal orbs, Roxas was safe.

And for the third time that timeless night, Roxas felt as secure as he would have been if embraced by an invisible arctic Goddess.

Sora commented on that thought, "That's Namine effect on you, I guess."

This time Roxas was actually being pressed into skin. They were Sora's infant slimy tentacles. They encircled his fatigued body by the waist, and as they lifted him off the ground, Roxas's hid his cloudy blues under heavy eyebrows and his palm grasped weakly onto the grass, fruitlessly pretending to reach out for something that could keep him on the ground and somehow defend him from that monstrous being that looked like a cross between a Mormon sister and a tree. But all he could hold onto was a lone green blade, a moist lime leaf torn from its former plant abode.

Roxas opened his eyes unwillingly only when, after a few moments full of sinuous movements and splish-splash echoes, he felt his rear make contact with something rough and hard.

Sora's mane had deposited him on a branch that belonged to the tree he had previously owned.

"Now, Roxas," Sora snorted as he lithely brought his head inches close to Roxas's own, his neck having stretched out like black chewing gum just as his spikes had had. "Let's come to the juicy part of this little game we've been playing since you crossed the Gate of Horn."

Roxas nodded offhandedly.

Anything was good, even if it was insensible.

As long as all this stayed unreal.

As long as he still preserved some creativity somewhere deep inside his mind.

As long as he could exploit this creativity to get a well-deserved A on that stupid school assignment.

As long as this all remained a silly dream… nothing more, nothing less.

Sora licked his undetectable lips with a jet-black chameleon tongue, making an unwanted shiver run up along Roxas's spine.

"Eager much?" the immortal being sniggered as one of his tentacle-y spikes got a slippery but efficient hold on Roxas right wrist, pulling it up in front of the blond's face without much of a struggle.

When Roxas gave it a mere blasé glance, he found it clasping a sodden fresh leaf he remembered reaching out for during the previous event of the night.

"Nawwwww," Sora mewled naughtily as his head shook with irritatingly smooth movements, "Look at it more closely, sunshine."

Roxas obeyed, unhesitant.

There, amidst the eye-blinding vibrant green that spread from the minuscule petiole upwards and draped across the blades of the leaf, was a lone speck of dazzling orange oddly stuck near the tip of the thick midrib.

… Now, this was interesting. Had Sora just persuaded him to pool resources for a game of I Spy?

"I spy… a little butterfly…"

Ah, the butterfly again. That was the second time Sora had mentioned it. Not that Roxas even bothered to try to understand his words… Still, what did that little orange orb have to do with anything, let alone butterflies?

Shrugging, Roxas reached to touch it with his fingertip. The minute ball slipped a little to the side, sticking promptly to the leaf's surface again. Roxas looked closer than before. His midnights approached the object of their current interest slowly, until the distance between them was nearly invisible.

That was when he finally saw. It was a human figure, about the size of an infant's pinkie, standing inside the orange sphere.

Hastily, Roxas drew back.

Sora sniggered unfamiliarly, "I know, weird sensation. He's not really _that _big…"

'_Actually,' _Roxas frowned, refusing to glance back at the orange mystery now kept hidden from sight, _'He was _quite _small.'_

"Compared to the orange thing, he wasn't," readily replied Sora, imperceptibly raising his dark eyebrow.

Roxas knew what he meant. One moment he was looking at an orange drop on a leaf, so small that it plainly resembled a colored lizard's egg, and the next his eyes had acquired the vision of an entirely bright apricot place with a lone silhouette generating human presence.

Sora sighed, annoyance lingering in his breath.

"Look again."

This time, any feeling of fear and refusal disappeared from Roxas's mind. He brought the leaf up to his face again, and the moment he closed the distance between the mesmerising carroty unknown and his eyes, everything turned orange again.

This time, he could clearly see that the colour orange was not only the background; it was also acting as some kind of aqueous layer that veiled any colour inside that tangerine shell from his sight. He did not feel as if he was actually _in _that place; it felt more like he was an on-looker, observing the contents of the orange globule as if looking with his mind rather than his eyes. In any case, he did not need to peek at much; the only thing that caught his interest was the outline of that boy from before.

Roxas stared at him, and he stared back at Roxas. Even though partially obscured by orange and miniature in size, the blond outlined his appearance with impressive details. For instance, he immediately realiuzed by the person's manly facial expression that he was, indeed, a boy - a young man to be more precise. His body was oddly thin, and he was standing with his legs and arms opened a little more that they would have been if he were standing in a normal position. In fact, he looked as if he had just jumped around to face the blond. His eyes appeared of a bright maroon, although Roxas was sure that it was just the effect of the orange screening their real colour. The part of his appearance that mostly stood out was his hair; his long, backward spikes were of an eye blinding orange, and somehow Roxas just _knew _they were red.

The man's head turned the other way for a minute, than turned to face him again. With a deeper glance and a slight tilt of his head, Roxas gazed harder and found the man's eyes holding a confused, captivated, and frightened look.

For an instant, a sense of familiarity hung over them. Roxas frowned and looked harder than possible, trying to decipher any memory within the shape of the man. It was as if… as if he knew him from before... As if they had been very close acquaintances once upon a time…

… As if Roxas had just remembered him now, but the other boy did not remember him in return.

He heard Sora's voice whispering cautiously from behind him, but he neither looked around nor flinched.

"… _I_ _am beautiful just like you remember me to be, am I not?"_

At the words that echoed softly from Sora's lips, the man seemed to harshly decide against shaking his head in refusal, glimpsing more alarmed at Roxas as if the blond was the one who had said those words.

'_I don't _know_ you… How can I _remember_ you?'_

At the reverberation of the man's thoughts that had just echoed in his head, Roxas glazed some more. Again, Sora spoke, replying to the man.

"_Of course you know me! You just can't remember me…"_

The boy now seemed to be seriously panicking. But before Roxas could decipher any more of his train of contemplation, he was jerked back into the previous unreality of his dream where Sora existed and where the man was just a microscopic something trapped inside a tiny orange sphere stuck on a leaf.

Roxas's eyes found Sora's black face and narrowed with strictness.

Sora shrugged him off, embracing him again with his jet-black tentacles.

And before Roxas was absorbed into the black vortices that began to spring out of Sora's mouth, he heard the creature's voice resounding inside his head like the tinkling of a fallen key.

"You better remember the next time this happens_."_

* * *

When Roxas woke up the following morning, the innocent face of his mother beaming down at him with an intricate smile welcomed him with delight.

"Louise came to visit, dear," she said with her saccharine tone, "Wake-y!"

Roxas wished that she had known just how much malice and grief she had brought upon him with those news.

Ignorant of such thoughts, she kissed him on the forehead and then got up to leave, but not before warning him to get prepared and dress up nicely to meet their guest.

Throwing his sheets angrily off him, Roxas figured he missed Sora already; and only when he made it to the bathroom did he realize how ironic his guess had sounded. Because, in any case, meeting 'Louise' did, in a way, resemble meeting Sora again.

* * *

**Jack:** … Insert random word here.


	5. 4 SeaSalt

_**HAPPY AKUROKU DAY EVERYONE!!**_ (It's 13/8 at least here … Damn them time zones…)**_ HAPPY AKUROKU DAY EVERYONE!!_**

* * *

**The Butterfly and the Fairy**

**-4. Sea-Salt-**

No matter how piercing Axel's stare had managed to become, the woman lying on her back on the bed did not even bother to sense the uncomfortable presence of a person standing next to her. She was apparently too busy to even look like she was being watched, her nose between the pages of the book she was reading and her blue eyes literally glued to its treaded words, this backdrop austerely implying the magnitude of the worldly attention she was giving to that mere little thing.

Axel wrinkled his nose.

"_Even the wall looks more noticeable," _he sighed mentally.

Axel, unlike a normal person, was accustomed to be referred to as the air; after all, he had been living with Udine Hayle his whole life. And she was his mother, to make it worse. Or better, if you visualize this personality of hers as a hard training to prepare her kids for their upcoming adult life. As far as Axel knew, he had received more than enough of it by now; he had grown into being the most patient teenager – young man, to be more precise - in the world. But that he could be for thirty minutes _only_, and those minutes immediately morphed into seconds when a mosquito fluttering by puckishly made up its mind to hastily attack his pinky.

"Mom," he firmly stated, bringing his little finger between his lips.

Udine turned to the next page of _The BFG._

"Did dad send the money?" he asked after a moment of biting the red fingertip.

This time Udine waited_ only _a minute and nineteen seconds before replying:

"Hm."

Axel smiled for the first time in days.

"Does that mean we're going to buy the books tomorrow?"

"Hm."

"Okay," Axel beamed and sprinted out of the door, satisfied by the results of that short 'conversation'.

Axel and his family had moved in Twilight Town that June. Although he had spent the first years of his childhood in this sunset colored city, the rest of his life, including his adolescent one, he had lived in Traverse Town. He had moved there when he had turned ten and from then on he had opted upon calling it his permanent home. He had had to leave a few friends behind, but only a few; he had just been just a kid back then, and friendship had been only a game to him. He had known that he was about to begin a whole new life with a new house and new friends and new school and new emotions and whatever. What he hadn't known at that time was that in a matter of seven years he would have had to renounce to this new life which, with each passing day, was to turn into an old one.

This turn in the story happened when his dad came home one day and announced that they were officially broke. Well, not 'broke' in its precise meaning - which was 'having no money at all' – but 'broke' in the sense that business wasn't going so well. They weren't exactly rich, but they weren't poor either. Craig Hayle was a businessman. He had been earning sufficient money to provide his family with a decent and secure apartment, more that enough food to prepare four meals a day, the technologies that were considered compulsory for a respectable family, the best education for his children, and a family outing per week, which was usually a nighttime trip to a seaside restaurant or the theme park in their air-conditioned, seven-seats car. But after seven years of living what most people in Traverse Town would call a 'normal' life, things changed. Things that obviously concerned money.

Now Axel, together with his mother and three siblings, moved into a house located in a quiet neighborhood in Twilight Town while his father continued his business in Traverse Town. Living in Twilight was less expensive that living in Traverse, as his parents had already explained. Twilight wasn't as well-to-do a city as Traverse was and it didn't provide as much good-quality services like Traverse did, but it was a fine place to live in without ruining one's economy or reputation. They owned a little house which about as big and equally comfortable and safe as their old apartment; they got to have four meals a day plus the afternoon snack and occasional nibbles; they shipped their previous technologies to the new home (although they didn't have Internet connection, but that was just because Craig was one of those parents who thought that Internet is synonymous to virtual sex); the youngsters were now students of a private school and a high school for 'talented' kids; their family went out fortnightly, most of the time in the countryside to visit their grandparents and their cousins from their father's side and sometimes the cousins from their mother's side who lived somewhere in the city (they traveled in a micro-van supplied by their grandfather). And of course, since both Udine and Craig were native Twilight Townspeople, they got to see and hear from their _very big_ family almost every day, something quite infrequent in their past life in Traverse, where their only family was Craig's brother and his wife and children, five irritating spoiled little brats. They might have been at times unbearable, but sometimes Axel and the others (excluding Udine, who was more than happy to return to the 'bosom of her family') found the whole ' countless relatives' thing _intolerable_.

In short, there was a pro to every con and a con to every pro, so it was difficult to decide the outcome of a debate between Mrs. Hayle, who was in favor of living in Twilight for the next few years, and the Hayle siblings, who were against living in Twilight for the next few seconds. But those were petty arguments that commenced when someone was extremely bored and had nothing more exciting to do. The real dispute happened weeks ago back in Traverse, where an ultimate motion automatically presented itself and declared Udine's contention triumphant. And that motion was now screaming the same thing repetitively at everyone who dared to complain, either outwardly or internally, about how painful it was to live in this lowlife twilight place and how life in Traverse was thirteen times better and more hi-fi and more comfortable and more luxurious.

That continuous roar being: _WE'RE BANKRUPT, SO EITHER DEAL WITH IT AND BE HAPPY THAT YOU'RE NOT LIVING IN THE STREETS OR DON'T DEAL WITH IT AND GO APPLY FOR A JOB AT THE NEAREST BEGGARS' COMMUNITY CENTER._

After a month of this bellowing message beeping in and out of his ears, Axel stopped thinking about it altogether. Being the elder brother and the most patient boy his age, he succeeded in finally calling this place home, following Udine's example. The remaining three Hayles still had some difficulties to welcome this twist in the events, especially the seven-years-old Rikku, the youngest of the family. But a month was enough for them to stop their useless whines and complaints and to mostly accept the fact that they were going to live here for a few more years. They weren't thoroughly content about it, but that was an acceptable condition as long as they did not develop a serious instable mental state.

Axel fortunately did not.

He just offered those thoughts a cup of tea and threw himself on his bed, trying to fight off his boredom with the anticipation of tomorrow's events. Now that Craig had finally sent some cash, he would be able to buy his school textbooks. School had already started; in fact, that was supposed to be the first weekend after two days of school for ordinary students, but not for Axel. Since he didn't buy the books, and neither did Seifer, his slightly younger brother, the two of them concluded that there was no use in attending class without the basic necessaries and end up looking like two idiot noobs. Udine had rejoined that they could always share the books with their classmates, but in the end she gave up when her two sons stated that there would be no harm coming from at most a week of absence. It wasn't like they were going to learn much anyway.

And why, for Pete's sake, did school here start in July? That happened only in nerdy places like Asia…

Axel realized that he had been spending the last thirty minutes dawdling stupidly on the bed only when something big and heavy hit him on the side of the head. Massaging the pained body part, he turned to glaringly face the attacker, who was sitting on a chair beside the desk, snickering with impish satisfaction.

"Why in the world," started Axel with a tone of lighthearted disapproval, jerking his pinkie back from a bite, "Did you throw me the stupid _dictionary_?"

"I hate Oxford," Seifer simply stated, pushing back his flaxen hair to give a finishing touch to his bad-guy pose. "Let's go out."

Axel turned towards the window.

"It's raining."

"It's just a few drops, asshole," boorishly replied the other while semi-covering his verdant eyes to give off a jaded impression, "It's not like we're gonna drown or anything. And no," he quickly sat up in an alert position and pointed an accusing finger at the older boy who had opened his mouth to let out a familiar retort, "Don't fucking tell me that you fucking hate the fucking rain, 'cause I fucking don't care."

Axel glared daggers back at him, deciding that it was time to dissociate himself from his 'patient' life for a moment.

"Well," he started, raising his voice a little more than normal, "Contrary to you, _I_ fucking _do _care! And why the fuck do you want to go out anyway?"

Seifer smirked, satisfied by Axel's resolution to use his favorite swear word.

"Sea-salt ice-cream, lamer."

Those last three words (two actually, excluding the very last one) did the magic; Axel hopped off his bed and made for the door with a tentative grunt, followed by a sneering blond who immediately decoded that grunt as a sign of thanks. That was what it meant in the Axel-language anyway.

Meanwhile, from behind an open door that was just across Axel's bedroom door, Ariel's voice resounded with a hint of both a reprimanding scowl and a knowing smile.

"You guys use the F-word again, I'm gonna castrate you to death!"

_**--**_

The trip to the Sunset Corner was five minutes full of Axel running down the road futilely trying to avoid every single raindrop, Seifer jumping on bigass puddles on purpose, and rainwater, splattering either from the clouds or the ground, splish-splashing here and there making one of the boys growl like an untamed pyromaniac and the other have hysterics like the next-door grandma. But they finally made it to their destination, a moderately sized ice-cream parlor with a dusky apricot theme. The two brothers had discovered it a few days after their arrival, and this was one of the few pros that Axel would definitely stay in Twilight for.

They ordered their favorite flavor, as usual, and went to sit at the few tables situated inside the place. They had never tasted sea-salt ice-cream before, not even when they used to live in Twilight as kids; it was said that the recipe had been recently discovered by some rich guy from some far-away place called Radiant Garden. Wherever this radiant place was, one thing was sure; it never sold its special goods to Traverse Town.

Seifer leaned back on his chair when they reached their table and let out a colossal yawn before diving into his sea-salt paradise. For a while he devoured it without the slightest notice of the outside world, but after that he disconnected from the pale blue popsicle and returned his brother's raised eyebrow.

"Wha?" he asked sluggishly, the tip of his tongue still attached to his ice-cream.

Axel shook his head and rested his chin on his right palm.

"Nothing," he said, and his beryl eyes met the featherlike pouring outside, somehow glistening with a silvery hint of a not-so-happy feeling. "It's just that it kinda feels like some sort of disease…"

Seifer frowned deeply.

"An emotive contamination," Axel whispered in reply to his frown. "I mean, whenever it's raining, the sky turns gray and so does your mind…. I mean, my mind… and it doesn't help the fact that you just yawned."

Seifer returned to his ice-cream.

"Meaning?" he slurped.

"_You_ tell me," answered Axel, this time eyeing him with a serious expression.

Seifer detached himself from the icy treat again and threw his brother a stern look.

"I'm bored," he shrugged as he threw his figure against the chair, " And so are you. That's why it feels weird. Honestly, I can't believe I'm actually jumping with joy at the prospect of going to school again."

Axel smirked empathetically, "Looking forward to found another 'disciplinary committee'?"

Seifer scrolled his shoulders, "It shouldn't be hard. All I have to do is to create myself the old reputation… Although," Seifer paused, biting his lips, "It'll be a bit difficult to find substitutes for Fuu and Rai…"

Axel snorted loudly, but Seifer didn't pay him any heed. He just quickly finished his ice-cream and pointed out to Axel's one.

"Oh… shit!" Axel exclaimed mournfully as he spread his arm out to avoid any sea-salt drop from staining his clothes. "It's melting! Gyah…"

Ignoring the "Serves you right, asshole!" coming from the usual mocking source, he quickly ran to the corner of the room where there was a lone orange bin. With a little bit of luck, he managed to consume half of the azure frozen snack, but the other half of it went down with the garbage anyway. Swearing under his breath, Axel ran up to the counter to grab a tissue, but it turned out to be fruitless; the sky-blue substance was too sticky to get rid off with the tissue alone. Red in face, Axel smacked Seifer on the head before dashing to the bathroom at the back of the shop, but the guy's cackles took their time to die down.

Axel harshly slammed the door behind him and confronted the narrow white corridor ahead with a truly disappointed frown. They didn't get to eat ice-cream very often and here he spoiled the occasion…! And it was all because of the fucking rain… Man, did he hate the rain…! With his floating mind still amidst the towering gurgles of ferocity, Axel flung the bathroom door open and was about to let out an enraged yowl, but before any sound could leave his throat, his mouth went suddenly dry in response to the image before his eyes.

Sitting like a broken porcelain doll on the cold tiled floor was the naked figure of a young boy, fresh crimson blood splattered all over his back as if his seraphic wings had just been brutally wrenched away by a murderer.

* * *

Kairi popped some more of those mystic little white fluffs into her mouth and savored it with voracity, ecstatically enjoying not only the infamous 'popcorns', but also the streaming colors of a picture playing before her like a broken record.

"Gotta love them daymares," she snickered as she licked the sea-salty flavor off her perfectly manicured finger. "Too bad this one's gonna be a bit short…"

Beside her, devious yellow eyes pierced through the images like an undulating ray of ghastly laments, landing first on that of terror-stricken jade orbs, then on that of the shattered body of a being he knew too well to be his own sister.

"Show him, Nami," Sora uttered in a blood-thirsty scorn, widening his platinum grin as he too grabbed a bunch of popcorns and chucked them against his sharp white teeth.

* * *

"Are you… alright?"

Axel saw the boy opening his blond-banged eyes in an agonizingly slow pace, disclosing the most beautiful cerulean shade he had ever seen.

… _It felt familiar…_

Interlocked, emerald and indigo stared at each other as if in a trance, communicating in a secret volatile language that only the colors could understand.

"… Are you hurt… anywhere?" Axel whispered with a thin, trembling voice as his hand abandoned the warmness of the right cheek of the boy and traced down his shoulder.

He felt nor the repugnance of blood, nor the debility of blemished skin; he sensed the roughness of a shirt instead.

"… N-no…" the boy uttered for the first time.

Axel's right palm shuddered, sensing all the pain and sorrow that that lone little word had spread throughout his body, but it didn't move from its position on the boy's cheek. He preferred it there, nice and cozy, cupping that gentle face and ready to wipe away any tear that dared to cross across its beautiful profile.

But it did not need to. Those blue ponds were excruciating, but they didn't release any of their lost feeling of anguish… But he was so sure, _so _sure, that just a moment ago they were crying the heart out of that little creature. He was absolutely _convinced _that he had just seen the blood-smeared back of that petite angel, had just simmered with anger at the brutality of the scene, had just felt the familiarity of it all when he saw the remains of those seraphic wings that had been so blaringly eradicated from his beloved fairy…

"…ke sea-salt…" came droning in his ears a distance music of a faraway land.

"Wha…?" He mumbled incoherently, coming back to what was supposed to be reality.

'_What the heck…?' _he fervently thought and asked himself. _'… Fairy? Come again…'_

"I said…" the boy pouted cutely while loosely gripping Axel's hand with his and gently removing it from his face. "… You smell like sea-salt."

Axel gaped for a moment, then brusquely stood up pulling the mysterious boy up with him.

"S-sorry!" he stuttered when he heard the other yelp with surprise. "I mean… Well, I just had sea-salt ice-cream melting all over me, you know… and… uh, that's how I got in the bathroom first of all! Then I saw you on the floor and you were blee– I mean, you looked like you… you looked a bit queer, I thought you were… I dunno, something, so… yeah…"

Axel bitch-slapped himself mentally. If there was something he hated more than the fucking rain, that was looking like a complete dork in front of someone. Especially someone he liked.

The boy tilted his head to the side.

Axel squealed. (Under his breath, that is.)

"Uh…" the boy started, scratching the back of his head with the lost air of an orphan, "I was just… having a… I mean, I just had a horrible experience, that's all…"

Axel widened his eyes.

"Why, what happened to you?!" he immediately asked, fearing to hear an answer that might have the word 'blood' along its lines.

The boy shook his head in a dismissive way, making his milky spiked strands elegantly oscillate sideways and up and down.

"Nothing serious, just this woman I really hate… Had to see her again… She's unbearable… a real…" the boy started to gesticulate uneasily with his hand. "… _Bitch_," he whispered at last.

"Oh," was all Axel said before both of them started laughing.

And Axel decided that he rather liked the sound of those chuckles.

"Roxas," the boy beamed and offered his hand.

Axel didn't waste his time stuttering this time.

"Axel," and he took the hand very gladly.

* * *

**TMES:** Sup?


	6. 5 Fool

**WARNING: I DON'T LIKE THIS CHAPTER. DON'T THINK I PUT MUCH EFFORT IN IT. SO FLAME ME FOR THIS!**

* * *

**The Butterfly and the Fairy**

**-5. Fool-**

Roxas took his time to get prepared that Saturday morning.

Very, _very_ patiently, he dragged himself to the bathroom with the average speed of a turtle, then proceeded to take a shower with the almost exact voracity of a slug. (Did slugs take showers?) Then on to hair drying and clothing; he purposefully lingered in front of his wardrobe with the air of an unconvinced teenage girl. What should he wear today? Hmm… this T-shirt looks a bit too flashy… and these jeans have gotten too old, he should get rid of them first thing the next morning… and this wristband–

"_Roxas! _Don't tell me you're still in bed!" Came a motivated scolding from downstairs.

"I'm not, mum, I'll be there in a sec!" Replied Roxas with a highly doubtful tone, conclusively deciding that that wristband looked all right.

With silent steps he reluctantly strolled down the stairs and found himself facing the two women sitting on a couch in the living room.

One was smiling like a mother who was slightly embarrassed by her son's childish behavior.

The other however, was not smiling at all. For every time she tried to smile, she would always end up _grinning_ like a mother's friend who was greatly entertained by her girlfriend's minor but comical humiliation provided by the already mentioned son.

"Good morning, Roxas!" she beamed with her all her thirty-two's glimmering with obnoxious pride.

"Good morning, Miss Ross."

As Roxas had expected, his mother started to giggle. It was one of those familiar sounds that women always performed off-handedly, as if the situation causing it was extremely funny and thus immediately needed to be giggled upon, no matter how old the joke had gotten. And the joke had gotten pretty old indeed – nine years, Roxas counted. But it wasn't like his mother was very good at math anyway.

"It's _Mrs. _Ross, Roxie…!"

Mrs. Ross's grin, meanwhile, did not falter. It did not grow wider like a certain _thing_'s did some time ago in a far away dream place, but it somehow developed a deeper illustration of mirth.

'_How _does_ she do that?' _Roxas thought as he sat on the couch opposite to the amused ladies, his apathetic eyes purposely disagreeing to focus on anything in particular.

The subject of his thoughts shook her head at his mother.

"Come on, Giulia, you know that you can't get rid of habits that easily…"

It was a habit indeed, as already pointed out. Less than a decade ago Miss Ross was a young but talented teacher not only tutoring a six-years old Roxas, but also being the 5th Grade class teacher. As the years went by, she was promoted to teach Grade 6, then Grade 7, and lastly Grade 8. She never thought about being a high school teacher – she had always explained to everyone, with a very convincing, modest smile (grin), that she was too inexperienced to take up such a great responsibility. Not that Roxas was ready to believe that; if the woman could easily be fed up with little six-years olds, imagine her dealing with freshly hormonal teenagers.

Meanwhile, the audience, oblivious to this latter piece of information, watched the young woman grow into an outstanding member of the society. It beamed as she finally decided to nourish a proper life; she found herself an equally beautiful and talented (and obnoxious, Roxas would like to add) husband, who just had to have her same surname…

Well, at least Roxas did not have to make a greater effort at centering Mrs. Ross's name right. Mrs. and Miss sounded almost the same anyway.

"Mrs. and Miss sound almost the same anyway!" Mrs. Ross laughed loudly, her blue eyes bulging slightly out of their orbits (although only Roxas noticed).

The giggles and laughs and trivial chitchat continued for the rest of the morning, the annoyed blond boy trying his best to ignore them while hanging around the kitchen. He was not allowed to go back to his room – never when Mrs. Ross came to visit. His mother seemed to think of the ex-student and ex-teacher to have some sort of a special relationship, so she always endeavored to foster it. Roxas thought it was thoroughly unhealthy, but Giulia was one of those parents who loved to boast about their child's successful academic background.

Just as Roxas finished devouring his cereals (it was 9 'o clock, and he was extremely hungry), Mrs. Ross's electric blue orbs scanned over his lucky-but-not-for-long figure.

"I think it would be very constructive if you were to come with us, Roxas."

Roxas looked over his empty bowl, his eyes deliberately going blank again. _Go where with them? Oh yeah… They had been talking about some stupid art exhibition at the Victorian Complex…_ He had enough of them, as a matter of fact. All right, they were instructive and all, but when you got to have an excess of them, they would soon start to become lame. The slut always convinced his mother to go with her routinely. Luckily, Roxas could occasionally use the usual excuses to avoid them, but this time he saw that he did not have any way out; after all, school had only just started, and he didn't have the air to be busy with anything else.

To make it worse, his mother would always agree with anything the old whore would spew out.

"Oh, it will be really interesting, Roxas!" Giulia's eyes literally glittered with motherly excitement.

"My sister will be coming too," Mrs. Ross added, turning to Giulia. "I talked to you about her, didn't I? And I'll tell her to bring her kids along as well, they should be about Roxas's age."

_Oh, great_, thought Roxas. He should _totally _go. He didn't have any other choice did he? His mother would not miss out the chance of giving her only beloved son the occasion to befriend her best friend's _nephews _(and nieces?)! It wouldbe like a _family_ outing – and who knows! Maybe they _will _become family if Roxas favorably decides to go out with the niece/one of the nieces, if she/they exist/s…

… Roxas felt like throwing up inside… To be _related _to the blonde slut was the last thing he wanted to do…

"And also, Roxas, I have something for you."

Roxas swallowed the bitter taste of resignation and left the kitchen counter. As he began to carefully pace towards the object of his lifetime hatred, the latter began a hurried reconnaissance of her messy handbag. Right when Roxas halted his stride, Mrs. Ross 'aha!'ed and pulled out two rectangular shapes and handed them out to the tolerant boy waiting for the next torture.

Roxas was careful not to come in skin contact with the woman's bony fingers as he warily extracted the items from her rigid hold.

They were books. Story books to be more precise. Their covers were similarly of a dark purple and shared the title '_Stravaganza'_. The thinner of the two was subtitled '_The City of Masks'_, and bore the image of an elegant silver mask disclosing two intriguing violet eyes. The other book, _'The City of Stars'_, was instead adorned with a silver carousel comprising what looked like zodiac symbols across its circumference, and the black shadow of a winged horse decorated the center, adding supplementary mysticism to it all.

Dirty blond eyebrows furrowed unceremoniously at the mere sight.

"_Stravaganza_," the sickening voice of the previous holder of the books soared back to Roxas's aching ears. "It means 'eccentricity', I think."

Roxas vaguely nodded, defocusing on the items in his sweaty hands yet maintaining inexistent visible contact with the slut.

"Perfect for you, right?" The woman continued with a convinced grin, ignorant or ignoring the thick atmosphere forming around her former student. "I mean, I've observed throughout the past years that you like this genre a lot! You know…" her voice dropped gradually.

Roxas tilted his head, still avoiding eye contact. The other continued nonetheless.

"Adventure, supernatural… _fantasy_…"

Did her tone really alter that much when she spoke the last word, or was it just the blond's imagination? … _Ah_, there we go again with _imagination_…

"Of course."

Imagination was one thing, but _sanity_? When was it that the conflict started? Nine years ago! Nine friggin' years… and he's still facing the same mental dejection…

"I'll take a look at these."

She just so had to foster it and make it develop into some type of a psychological depletion… but how exactly did she do it? _Okay, fine, you broke the little guy's heart…_

"May I be excused now?"

… _Yet why did and do you keep playing with it? Why do you keep introducing and re-introducing these mocking ideas to him? Why can't you just leave him alone, let him breathe some normal air, give him some space, let him live in one world and not in both at the same? _Why and _how_ are you able to affect him so much?

"I've got this school assignment…"

These entire unanswered questions simply made him feel like a fool…

"No, nothing too serious…"

A fool who lived in-between two worlds, unable to permanently trespass either of their boundaries, incapable of deciding which was reality and which was fallacy…

"But, you see, I kind of got inspired…"

And whenever he tried to reason, to find a way out of this illogical labyrinth of confused thoughts created by the malign black witch, he would always end up at the beginning of this inner torment…

"_And I'd really like to finish it."_

And with that, Roxas walked away.

Up the stairs.

Into his room.

Flung those iniquitous books into the bin…

… And out the window…

It was only after he clung to the tree adjacent to his windowsill and softly touched the ground that he began to run.

His racing feet treaded the familiar path across the streets, the bridge, the streets again… They approached with hastened towards a well-known building, sprinted beyond the orange doors, loped past a worried face, tore across another door, a white corridor, and another door which ruthless hands forcefully slammed close…

… And collapsed.

…

Roxas felt _sick_.

A very sick _fool_.

With a very sickening _headache_.

Though he had experienced this nauseating feeling before more than once, he did not feel like this often on a regular routine. It wasn't like he had to confront all this emotive thoughts everyday…

… But recently, his befuddled mind had been spinning recklessly around this hazardous zone. Was it because that callous woman ad returned from her one-month vacation to torture him? Or was it because he had secretly been living in the dark meanders of the past without conscious realization?

God, his head _hurt_!

_What _exactly was happening?! Roxas felt like screaming until his hot veins exploded, felt like his erratically beating heart would burst any moment… He was forgetting why he was so angry with the world in the first place… He was so furious, so enraged, so infuriated that he lost the sense of hearing, sight, taste… He could hear only the raucous and desperate yells erupting from beneath his trembling skin, could only see the blurred whiteness of the cold and unwelcoming floor, could only taste the acidic taste of hopelessness…

… Could only feel the warmth of two palms cupping his cheeks with gentle movements…

… _Could only smell the relaxing smell of sea-salt dispersing around him as if forging a sanctuary…_

* * *

"Yay! Second phase is over!"

What looked like a pocket full of round cotton fluffiness flew chaotically across a dark room and animatedly hit the door. The latter immediately opened after the impact to reveal the brightest shadow amidst the obscurity of the kingdom of Sleep; she was cheerfully welcome with a serpentine whisper of excitement and a snigger of naughty satisfaction.

"Well done, Nami," said the feminine voice which had previously shouted out the official accomplishment. "You got them right on track!"

"All they have to do now is finish the rest of the walk…!" Continued the other shadowy inhabitant as he jumped off his comfy seat and took a seemingly more comfortable post on the ceiling. "How many episodes left?"

Kairi lavishly licked a solely remnant popcorn and replied, "Less than ten… Something like that," She added, unsure.

Namine took Sora's abandoned cushions and nodded, refusing to give any superfluous elucidation… it was not necessary.

Because all was going according to the plan.

* * *

_It soothed him like nothing else did._

The salty aroma of the midnight sea, the warmness of caring fingertips, the smooth voice of a gracious stranger, the verdant tinge of his attractive eyes, the comforting feeling his embarrassed blush seemed to tenderly emanate, and the light friction of his jet-black eyelashes resembling the soft batting together of butterfly wings.

"Roxas," he offered his hand almost readily, his lips quirking upwards not in a smile, but a wholehearted laugh.

"Axel," the mysterious redhead replied in-between his own laughs.

Roxas was surprised by the speed at which his heart stopped beating when Axel took his hand.

* * *

**Jack:** I've got, like, a whole set of very sharp things, Demyx's dick, Akuroku manga… Oh, hi Zexion, you wanna join the club?

**Zexion:** … I'd rather **REVIEW**.

**TMES:** NOT ENOUGH EFFORT. CHAPTER SUCKED. **FLAME!**

(thanks for lightofeilia for the really instructive kick in the butt!)


	7. 6 Introdution

**TMES: **… I'm not good with school scenes… But I need some realistic background, you know?!

**Jack: **She had to include the last part… I clearly told her not to, but she wouldn't listen… Voice your thoughts please…

* * *

**The Butterfly and the Fairy**

**-6. Introduction-**

And there they were, standing like two dorks in a public bathroom, shaking hands.

"Um… yeah…" Axel started when Roxas let go of his sweaty hand. "Let's go outside…?"

"After you wash your hands," Roxas suppressed another laugh and impishly pointed at them. "They're sticky."

Axel blushed.

They did not talk or look at each other much as they made it out of the bathroom and the white corridor that followed, but just as Roxas finished ordering his ice-cream (sea-salt flavor) and Axel opened his mouth to ask the flaxen-haired boy whether he lived nearby, a familiar exclamation from not much far away snapped the redhead out of what felt like a trance. Axel blinked his eyes and immediately turned around, only to face a confused and irritated brother waving a hand towards him from his table, an empty popsicle stick in his other hand. Axel motioned a dismissing sign back, but Seifer pointed at his wristwatch as a retort; he then gave an odd look at Roxas, who conveniently had not noticed anything as he was too absorbed in checking something out in his cellphone while mechanically licking away his frosty ice-blue treat.

Axel sighed and reluctantly turned to his newfound friend, "Hey… Roxas? I really need to go…"

Roxas frowned, "So quick?"

"Er, my moth- I mean, I gotta be home by now, I've got…" Axel scratched the back of his head nervously, thinking of an excuse that did not involve his _mother_, "… I've got some work I need to finish…"

Roxas blinked, surprised.

"Well, not that you mention it," he said with an amused smile, "I've got something I need to finish, too."

"Okay then… bye…?"

The shorter boy shrugged, looking slightly disappointed, "Okay, bye!"

He went back to his cellphone as Axel started to walk towards the exit, where a bored Seifer had been waiting for him for the last minute, but not before the redhead could lay his third step, he heard Roxas give off an abrupt "Hey!"

The boy hurried towards Axel and handed over his cellphone to the redhead.

"Save your number here…!" Roxas said, looking a little excited.

Wide-eyed, Axel took the small device and stood still for a short moment while biting his lips. Great, someone was asking for his number. His _number_. Which he did not have. Well, had a _cellphone_… but not a _number_, because that would mean extra spending for his father.

Craig's distant voice flew back to Axel's much-annoyed mind.

"_You won't really need it," _the parent had scowled, pointing a hostile finger at his poor flame-red super-hot mobile. _"You can always use your mother's."_

Did he have any other choice? Zero, he started pressing, eight, one, three…

"Here you go," Axel gave the phone back to Roxas, hastily adding an innocent side warning. "Ehm, I leave my phone around all the time, it's a bad habit of mine… So if _anyone else_ receives the call," he gulped uneasily, trying not to sound too leery, "Don't hang up, just… tell 'em that you're a friend of mine."

Roxas's oblivious nod and final goodbye wave reassured the troubled redhead, who squrried out of the parlor and patiently let Seifer crossly punch him on the arm.

"What the fuck happened back there? Who was that guy?"

Axel sighed, enduring as always.

"A new friend?" He tried unwearyingly.

Seifer raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, "I never saw him before. You just met him… where?"

"… In a public bathroom."

* * *

Since Sunday morning he had woke up from a peaceful sleep full of petite blonds with charming blue eyes and not of orange places and abnormal mermaids, Axel had thought that maybe the uncanny dreams consisting of the latter structures had finally left his poor, troubled mind alone. But as soon as Sunday night came and the clock struck twelve, he learned that he should never underestimate his enemies, even when they were purely part of your imagination.

"Part of you imagination? How dare you!" Kairi hissed like a venomous viper while throwing a whole bunch of popcorns at an annoyed Axel, who sighed. "I'm too important to have such a lowly identity!"

Axel raised his eyebrow.

Kairi pouted some more.

"…"

Everything was as he left it; the environment was spherical, the background was intensely orange, the solid boundaries minus the floor were slimy, and Axel's only company was a flying carmine-haired girl with an emerald snake tail. The only few atypical additions this time were the absence of a giant head just outside the dazzling carroty shell and the presence of a bowl full of popcorn in Kairi's greedy hold.

Oh, speaking of popcorn… Axel idly picked up one from the bunch the decidedly hormonal 'girl' had hurled at him and carefully licked it as if testing it for poison. Meanwhile, Kairi advanced towards him and sat down as well, her tail fluidly curling to take a comfortable position when it came in contact with the solid pavement.

"I'm here to tell you a story."

Axel looked up, slightly perplexed. He gazed deeply into Kairi's bright blues, trying to uncover some hidden meaning behind those words, but her eyes were unresponsive, like her voice.

"So don't interrupt."

This was the first time he was hearing her sound so serious.

Kairi let out a long breath before commencing her speech.

"… What I'm about to tell you is actually the introduction to a long story, since one night is simply not enough time," Kairi strictly narrowed her eyes. "And also, keep in mind that you're not in your world anymore. This is the world of _Sleep_, Axel."

Axel snorted, "You mean, the world of _dreams_?"

"No, the world of _Sleep_," the other replied almost jadedly. "Looks like you're still a rookie."

Axel rolled his eyes, swallowing yet another delicious, salty ball. Kairi ignored that.

"I'll give you a simple example," she said, somewhat patiently. "Take _your _world into consideration. I know that the only specific name for it is _Earth_, but if I were to call it the world of humans, animals, and plants, would that be decent?"

"Er…" Axel blinked, looking astounded, "Not really? I mean, those things that you just mentioned are just inhabitants of–"

"_Exactly!_" Kairi shrieked passionately, making the boy's body jerk backwards because of the sudden pitch alteration. "Dreams are just the _inhabitants_ of Sleep. They are the ones that give it a more profound existence, that are responsible of altering its shape, sound, and fragrance..." Her zealous exclamations had now turned into mysterious whispers. "They are the ones who drive away its shadows to give it color, they are the ones who guide its visitors through its immersed darkness…"

Awestruck, Axel squinted at the mermaid-girl, silently telling her to elucidate more, but she took a moment to recover from this uncommon state of being.

"Did you know that I am a Dream as well?" Kairi suddenly asked.

Axel tilted his head to the side.

"You mean, this whole place is a–"

"No," Kairi retorted, annoyed. "This place is a part of _Sleep_. While _I_," she pointed at herself with pride, "Am the Dream that is causing you to see all this. Without _me_," she emphasized her vital identity once more, "You wouldn't be able to _see _all this."

She motioned with her hands to look around him. Axel looked, doubt shading his mind.

"Kairi," he said hesitantly, "Sorry to break it to you, but this place is not all that fantastic as you think it is–"

"Axel," Kairi interrupted him, "Sorry to break it to you, but this place is not all that lame as you think it is."

Axel glared.

"Prove it."

Kairi sighed, roughly slapping her hand on her tired eyes.

"If you let me continue, you will understand… I promise," she added quickly as Axel opened his mouth to rejoin once more. "Where was I? … Oh, yeah, me being a Dream. Now look; there are many other 'beings' in this world, but not all of them are Dreams. They are simply the creations of other highly beings, like me, called Oneiros. Well, in a sense, Dreams and Oneiros are the same people, but it's better to refer to them as the latter because… well, as you personally realized, it gets very confusing, ne?"

Axel automatically nodded, trying to take in the new information.

"So anyway," Kairi continued, pleased that she had finally succeeded in attracting the young man's attention, "You have to know that Sleep is divided into two regions, the False and the True. The region in between them is called the Unconscious, and it is there that people from your world usually end up when they enter Sleep. Sometimes they stay there for hours, but in the end they always end up crossing one of the gates that lead them to either False or True."

"Wait a sec," Axel said while resting his chin on his knuckles, "Gates?"

"Yup," Kairi confirmed, "They're called the Gates of Hypno, who is the creator of Sleep… You know," She seemed to waver a little, looking faintly embarrassed. "That's… uhm, my dad…"

Axel's left eyebrow rose for the second time that night.

"… Your dad?" he skeptically repeated.

"Uhuh…" Kairi's flushed face went up and down. "My dad… We call him Vexen though… I mean, at least _that_ sounds way less menacing…"

Axel chuckled.

"Your family has a weird naming system…"

"It does not!" Kairi bellowed indignantly, her fist tightening at her sides. "It's just… It's my brother's fault! He… he… he was the one who came up with the idea, telling us that we were all a bunch of losers and that we should get real and start doing more useful things like getting decent names and starting to act more like that Jerry Springer guy and watching television and–" she paused, glowering at the scene in front of her. "What are you laughing at?!"

Axel breathed heavily and erratically against the palms of his hands, which he was currently using to block any wicked sound that dared to pass through his not-so-tightly-sealed lips.

"'M… not… laughin'…" he barely made out.

Kairi huffed, "_Anyway!_ I was saying… Seriously Axel, _stop _it!"

"… Sorry…"

Said redhead looked down as if shameful, a smirk still plastered on his features.

Gradually, Kairi calmed down as well, making a mental note to herself about future anger management plans.

"Anyway…" she restarted with her usual tone of voice. "There are… two gates bordering the Unconscious. The Gate of Horn leads to the True, while The Gate of Ivory leads to the False. Usually the visitors of Sleep take the latter…" She frowned. "The True is barely trespassed…"

"Mmm…" Axel bit his lips as he digested all this into his memory. "So that means… that I must've have passed by the Gate of… how's it called? .. The one that leads to the False, right?"

"Absolutely not, you idiot," Kairi sniggered impishly, "You crossed the Gate of Horn, that means you're in the True. _I_," she assumed the position of higher authority again, "Am a _true _Oneiro right now, that means I'm your guide in the True. If I were a _false _Oneiro at the moment, I wouldn't have wasted so much time hanging around you."

"Yah, right," Axel said sarcastically. "Yet… why are you saying that you're true 'right now'? Does that mean that you could turn into a false… Oreo… if you wanted to?"

"_Oneiro_, dumbass," Kairi corrected irritably, "And yes, I could morph into a false Oneiro; but if that would have been the case, I would be guiding people around the False, I wouldn't step in the True."

Axel scowled, unable to resist the urge to ask a question he had been plausibly trying to answer during this ridiculously bizarre speech.

"But what _are_ False and True?"

For a moment, Kairi sat in silence, ultramarine eyes hazed again.

"They are what they are."

Axel was about to reply astutely, yet remained speechless, unsure of what to say. He relentlessly thought it all over; okay, dreams may be false, that was quite a decent statement… But true? True dreams? How could dreams be true? Maybe she was referring to dreams that portrayed your true emotions or experiences or and so forth… Then how could the present orange milieu be explained? Uncomplainingly, Axel observed his surroundings once more; yet, everything seemed as vacant and austere as before. Unless… that boy he had come face to face with last time? No way… he did not recognize the boy, that he had already admitted and self-admitted… Now that he thought of it, he did not even remember his face; in fact, that at-the-time vivid image had faded away with the seconds that passed from when he had abruptly woke up.

"Axel…"

Kairi's tired whispering voice carted his attention off his bemused train of thoughts.

"… Yes?" the redhead replied rather sluggishly, still semi-absorbed in his rationalizing.

"We're running out of time," Kairi said, looking down at her watch-less wrist, "We've spent the last seven days introducing the story. I think it's time for you to go, I'll explain the rest bit by bit some other time."

"Seven days?" Axel said, "I think it's more like _hours_…"

Kairi shook her head.

"Time in Sleep is different," she explained, "It varies according to the dream your Oneiro is creating for you. And right now… seven days have already passed. Perfect," she then murmured, returning to her usual serpentine smirk, "Just in time for the egg to hatch!"

She stood up, or, to be more exact, she glided upwards. Axel followed suit and stood up, feeling a little dizzied.

"Egg?" he asked, exasperated again, wondering if this creature would ever speak to him in a less mystic way in the near future.

Kairi seemed to sense the irritation in his musings, for she managed to return to her former devil self, snickering like Axel had always known her to do. Axel shrugged; at least he now knew that she was back to being _normal _again.

Then, as expected, the orange around started to melt little by little into seven other colors; yellow, green, aqua, blue, indigo, violet… But just a split second before it started to completely fade back to extreme darkness, Kairi's voice came back to him to lastly enlighten him with the little bit of solemn manner she had left versus her devilish reputation.

"The secrets to your existence may be locked within the True. You hold one of the keys to disclose them…"

No, Axel decided right then; Kairi had not returned _normal _at all, because she was not normal to begin with.

* * *

"I'm parking here guys, I need to go with Rikku…"

"Mom, I don't need you to take me to school! I'm not a kid you know, I'm S-E-V-E-N years old now–"

"So you guys'll have to walk…"

"_I _can walk as well!"

"… Your school's not that far from here…"

"But mom, _my _school is–"

"Shut up already!" Seifer suddenly snapped and gave a light smack on the side of Rikku's head and jumped out of the car, Axel and Ariel enthusiastically following in order to avoid any upcoming motherly lecture and childish complaint.

They found themselves facing the infamous school just round the corner, standing out in all it bright brick-redness.

"_Sunset Horizons High_?" Seifer lamely read as they made it to the gate. "Sounds gay…"

Axel rolled his eyes. He was tired of reminding Seifer not to stereotype offhandedly about homosexuals. Come on, the guy had a gay brother; he of all people should know that not all 'unstraight' people were effeminate.

While Ariel dreamily took off towards her class (after gifting a proper scolding to Seifer about language and brotherly behavior), the two brothers tentatively passed through a strident gathering of students ("Fucking… cock-suckers! Dude, you just blasted my eardrums!"), slothfully walked to the office ("Where the fuck is it? Hey, Ariel, _hey! _Wait up! You forgot to tell us– what, no, I did _not _pronounce the F-word again…"), and had to tolerantly wait for a very girly looking secretary woman to stop her chitchat with some janitor ("Bitch, bitch_, bitch! _Hurry the fuck up!_"_).

"There you go, sweeties," the woman smiled pompously after handing over whatever information the two new students needed, apparently overlooking Seifer's furiously gritting teeth. "Don't forget about Olette Grayson – she offered to be your 'guide' for a while. You can't miss her, she's this pretty face with long brown hair and ridiculously orange attires…" the lady elucidated with a slight wrinkling of her nose.

"She offered?" Axel asked, narrowing his eyes a little.

"It's her job, unfortunately," the woman replied, completely misunderstanding his merely inquisitive look and awarding him with an 'oh-you-poor-boy-I-know-how-you-feel' pout. "She's the leader of the Disciplinary Committee _and _the prefect body, sorry."

Seifer exited the room with a furiously twitching eyebrow, which got even twitchier as an animated doll dressed in bright orange (a redhead massively squinted here) ran up to them when they reached the third and ultimate floor of the wine-colored building.

"Alex and Seifer Hayle, right? Welcome to Sunset Horizons!" her voice sounded like eroded sugar. "I'm Olette Grayson, I've been waiting for you since, like, last Thursday! Where've you been?!"

And before Axel could mumble the usual book excuse, she securely grabbed their hands and dragged them off towards the end of the corridor.

"I've had a look at your schedules already! Alex, your– wait, you're Alex, right?" Olette tugged on Seifer's shirt while the dirty-blond grunted very impolitely, although the overexcited girl was barely looking at him. "Your schedule is a bit different than mine. While yours, Seifer," she tightened her grip on Axel's hand, who winced and consequently ended up biting his lips too abrasively, "Most of our subjects coincide! So you won't have to worry Seifer ("Ouch…"), 'cause I'll be attached to you like superglue, so feel free to ask for help anytime! While you, Alex ("_Effin' bitch…_"), will have to depend on someone else… Don't fret! I got him ready for you! He's a member of the committee _and _a prefect too and just so conveniently in your study group, so…"

It was futile to say that the two ill-fated brothers then understood why the lady from before had treated them in that awkward way.

"… Yeah!" the orange-clad girl abruptly stopped and finally loosened her grip.

The two befuddled brothers instantly retrieved their aching hands and looked up to face the classroom at the very end of the L-shaped corridor.

"This is the Bio classroom," Olette restarted heartily, while clasping once again Seifer's sore hand, "So I'll need to drop you here, Alex!"

And before any of the two exhausted boys could rejoin, she speedily entered the room dragging the impatient wrong guy with her, the patient right guy following right behind.

As they made their way through the vaguely occupied class, Axel could not help but notice a late sunrise ray striking delicately on the surface of very familiar dark-cream spikes.

"_Roxas!_"

The high-pitched girly shriek cut sharply through the air and enthused two cerulean irises to leave the pages of an open textbook and turn upwards to face the source of such toxic annoyance.

"Olette."

Olette simply ignored Roxas's apathetic tone and pushed the raging Seifer against the front of Roxas's desk.

"Roxas, this is Alex Hayle! Alex, this is Roxas Kellen!" The girl let go off Seifer's hand and pointed a decisive index towards Roxas's uninterested form, effectively poking the tip of his nose. "Done the basic introduction… Now it's buddy time for you two! Meanwhile, I'll go find Seifer!"

Axel, on-looking open-mouthed from two desks behind, immediately crouched under the empty desk in front of him, this earning him a few amused giggles from a group of nearby girls.

"He must be waiting for me outside," Olette concluded after a slapdash survey of the classroom. "See ya!"

When the hectic girl darted away, Axel let out a sigh of relief and got up from his current position. Meanwhile, Seifer had already started to lose his temper.

"Look," he hissed venomously at Roxas who frowned, unfamiliar to the unusual displayed towards him by a person he did not know, "First of all, it's A_xel_, not A_lex_, and second, _I _am Seifer, while _that_," he pointed behind the uneasy boy towards an equally uneasy brother, "Is Axel!"

Axel could not suppress a smirk when Roxas's eyes sparkled with pleasant surprise at the sight of the friendly face he had just met a little more than twenty-four hours ago.

"Got it memorized?" Axel tapped the side of his forehead with a finger, proudly finishing Seifer's line.

* * *

**TMES:** Grrrrrrrrr… awwrrr! –imitates Tigress- Too much dialogue… Raaaaaaaaaaawrrr…! … **R**rrrrr… **ev**vvvvvvvvvv! **Eww**wwwwwwwrrr…

**Jack:**… Kairi is bipolar…


End file.
